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Have a ball at Hooverfest

By Loren Keller

Teams representing the two major candidates who want to be president will face off in West Branch Saturday in a game invented by the personal physician of former president Herbert Hoover.

The 21st annual Hooverball National Championship will be played on four brand new grass courts built adjacent to the Hoover National Historic Site as part of this year’s Hooverfest in West Branch, located off Exit 254 of Interstate 80.

“The Obama challenged the McCain camp,” says Becky Allgood, executive director of the Herbert Hoover Library Association. “The Obama team will be Iowa staffers; for McCain we’ll just have to see. They don’t have any people in Iowa so it’ll be interesting to see what happens. They’ll have to show somehow.”

The Obama-McCain matchup is among the four exhibition games that will be played at 6 p.m. Saturday before the Hooverball championship game.

“This is just a wonderful spectator sport,” Allgood says. “We have bleachers set up, we’ll have food stands at Hooverball this year and an announcer.”

Upwards of 40 teams of three to five players will compete in the Hooverball games beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday.

Hooverfest will also offer interactive historic games and activities; arts and crafts for sale on the Village Green; children’s activities including a fossil hunt, a water balloon fights and make-and-take demonstrations; a free screening of “The Final Season,” a film shot in Iowa; an ice cream social; a 5K race; and several community activities. A full schedule of events is posted here.

An entertainment stage will feature music by the Yahoo Drummers at noon, blues music by Kevin “B.F.” Burt and the Instigators at 2:15 p.m. and the 100’s, a “rural route rock” band, at 5:30 p.m.

Celebration Iowa Singers and Jazz Band will perform at 7:30 and fireworks set to patriotic music will close the festival Saturday night.

“A real secret is that we’ve got the best ones around because we can use the big shells,” says Allgood. “They set this stuff up in a big field so they don’t have to worry about tall buildings anywhere, so it’s a really phenomenal fireworks show.”

This year’s Hooverfest will honor 28 area service organizations and volunteers including the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

“Hoover was known as a great humanitarian. To commemorate his birthday, he would want to honor these folks,” Allgood says.

The association is also donating a dollar to flood relief for every person who attends Hooverfest.

“So we want thousands to come,” Allgood says.